The Carpenter's Son
by DrWorm
Summary: A.E. Housman - "Comrades all, that stand and gaze, Walk henceforth in other ways; See my neck and save your own: Comrades all, leave ill alone." Drawn together in guilt, wrapped tightly in cowardice. Remus and Harry slash, in a low-key sort of way.


Note: Title and quotation in summary taken from A.E. Housman's poem "The Carpenter's Son." Takes place in the aftermath of OotP. Written for the contrelamontre community on livejournal, the challenge being "sacrifice."

The Carpenter's Son

"Don't go." He stares up at me, eyes colorless and needy in the shadow of the foyer. "Don't go, don't leave me here."  
  
"I'll be back before you go to sleep, I promise." Lies make him feel better, lies from a surrogate father. It is easiest to swallow lies handed down by your parents, be they big or small, real or imagined or temporary or disappointing.  
  
"I'm lonely," he whines, clutching at my sleeve, twisting the material. "This house is too big." It is, too big and too full of the presence of a dead man. It echoes. Our grief makes every absence all the more deafening.  
  
I pull away from him, and a sharp mewl issues from the depths of his throat, vibrating its hateful way between clenched teeth. His desperation makes me anxious; knowing that I have died a thousand deaths in his eyes for every time I stepped out the door makes me weary, as if every end to every life he had dreamed had truly taken place in my weary bones. "So stay in the kitchen," I hiss, impatient. "Stay with everyone else if you're lonely."  
  
"I can't." His lower lip trembles, but he will never cry in front of me. "I can't, I'm sorry."  
  
The wooden molding of the hall's majestic and aristocratic arch feels smooth and cool against my palm; when I turn my head away and rest my cheek against the lacquered mahogany, a small hand encompasses mine. "Let me go with you."  
  
"No."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You know why." He is silent for a moment before leaning against me familiarly, content in the knowledge that I am supporting his weight; it tires me in a way that I would never dare express.  
  
"I should just die."  
  
"I don't think so." The words are familiar and lack conviction.  
  
"I killed him."  
  
"Of course not." He arranges my arm around his shoulders and burrows against me, seeking comfort.  
  
"Then why did he have to die?" He has not yet learned that, no matter how many times he asks this question, he will never be given an answer that fully satisfies.  
  
"Because everyone has to die."  
  
"But why him? Why then?"  
  
For God so loved the world… "Because kings have to sacrifice pawns." I look down at him, limbs heavy, knowing that I will soon have to move and leave and die the night's thousand deaths before coming home to bed. "Would you be happier if I had died?"  
  
He fidgets with a button on my coat, avoiding my eyes. "No." But I think he is lying, the way he lies most nights when he would prefer the touch of his godfather to that of his erstwhile professor. Guilt settles heavily in my chest, choking me. Final moments pass with every blink of my eye: motion, death, tears, silence, an acrid smell that tickles my nostrils and blurs my vision, his thin, wriggling body, trying to pull away, ribs grating against my forearms. I have yet to understand why he returns to such a hated embrace night after night.   
  
For God so loved the world, that he allowed us to protect his only begotten Son, who looks so young with his head resting against my shoulder. When I begin to move toward the door, he moves with me, not protesting, but accompanying. I pause by the umbrella stand to pull away, and he whispers in my ear. "Don't die tonight, okay?"  
  
"Okay," I whisper back as cowardice and shame fills me head to toe. My life is unimportant, yet I have kept it and preserved it selfishly to watch the growth of an adolescent boy who is not mine. I wish I could deny it, even as we close our eyes and look away from one another with perfect clarity of understanding; I should have saved him from the hangman's noose and died trying. And, because I did not, the boy left behind—the boy who lived—will continue to ask me why, as if my comfort could somehow fill the gap of the fathers he has lost. "Okay."  
  
Okay. Unless my death will bring his lost father and mistaken sacrifice back to him in my stead, I will not die tonight.


End file.
